I look in the mirror and what do I see, a woman? A girl?
Waiting to be free….of all that they told her she had to be…
Of the connotatations,
the assumptions, the bringing down,
of her pretending to be the clown,
not feeling enough,
not being tough,
not moving forward,
but staying stuck,
in the muck of the past
unknowingly…contributing tomaking it last,
I look in the mirror and all I can seeis a woman a girl,
waiting to go free!
This video marks a new beginning for a poem originally written for I am Maria!. It now emerges as a moment of transformation and transfiguration of voice and artistic self, unfolding within a new paradigm.
This work is not a standalone piece, but an evolving fragment that will form part of the live immersive performance I am Maria: Bloom.
Visual material by Valeria Pazos (PhD candidate, Mexico), whose imagery forms part of this evolving collaboration.
Lonely Star emerges as a poetic reflection on the hidden self, exploring the tension between outward performance and inner truth. Written as part of the I am Maria! creative research project, the poem gives voice to the quiet, often unseen emotional landscape carried beneath the surface. Through rhythm and repetition, it reveals the experience of isolation, self-concealment, and the longing to be fully seen and heard.
Lonely Star
The ups and downs,
the lows the things that nobody knows
the face they never see
hidden behind the curtain,
they’re blind,
I hide
behind a pose
behind my prose
behind the mask of
my smile
my style,
my swag,
and It presses heavily on my heart,
it’s become an art,
hiding that part,
the something I carry
like a pack on my back
24/7
no escape – no heaven
no relief underneath,
but they will never know
that it’s all just a show
and in it’s the real me,
the lonely star,
who only I see.
Lonely Star is a reflective poem and part of the creative research project I am Maria!
This poem extends into a lyrical vocal expression, where the internal voice emerges through rhythm, spoken word, and sound.
Their Song, our Song is a poem which reflects on the lived memories of women born into wartime and the lasting echoes carried across generations. Beginning with the story of a child left behind during the chaos of war, the poem traces a life shaped by hunger, labour, and the silencing of girls’ voices in a world where choice and agency were limited.
Through reflection and witnessing, the work asks us to imagine those little girls who have now become old women, and to recognise the injustices they endured. It invites the present generation to carry their stories forward, transforming silence into song.
This piece forms part of my ongoing creative research exploring voice, intergenerational memory, and the healing potential of artistic expression within the project I am Maria!
Their Song, our song
1943 my mother was born
In a country war torn
bombs were going off.
Mother of 5 picked up 4 and ran out the door leaving her behind not knowing what she’d come back to find. . .
war baby grew
and what she knew.
Hunger,
child labour,
education was a favour a luxury,
girls were currency,
with
no agency,
no choice,
no voice.
Imagine that can you somehow?
The little girls old ladies now,
recognise that it was wrong.
It’s up to us to carry them,
to a new day,
to a new song!
The following audio file is a sonic setting to this poem which reflects on war memory, women’s voices, and the intergenerational stories that continue to live within us. These themes are closely connected to my Croatian heritage, where song and language carry cultural memory across generations.
Jasam bila malo dite, čista u scrcu! I was a little girl…
“I was a little girl, clean and pure in heart.”
This melody came to me in the midst of my research question:
How does the classically trained singer transform into a self-authored creative artist?
It emerged from deep questioning from reflection connected to my cultural heritage, my upbringing, and my identity as a singer and as a mature woman finding her place in the artistic and academic world.
There is something profoundly intergenerational in this song. Mother to daughter.
Aunt to niece.
Grandmother to granddaughter.
The grown daughters now sing: “I was a little girl, clean in my heart.”
At a time in the world where the binds of patriarchal structures limited our possibilities. Limited our education. Limited our careers. Limited how we were taught to be.
My own journey between classical singing and becoming a creative artist mirrors this construction.
One path says: Be precise.
Be correct.
Be contained.
The other says:
Explore.
Question.
Break form.
Be whole.
Jasam bila, malo dite is evidence of cultural transmission in another way too. I have never sung klapa. I have never freely harmonised within that tradition. Classical training does not teach that kind of instinctive communal sound.
When I first recorded this, I sent it to my aunt and asked if my Croatian was correct. She said it wasn’t because instead of malo dite, I sang mala dite.
Grammatically, she is right. “Malo dite” is correct but the word “mala” that is what I remember being called, that is how it lives in my body and sonically, I love the sound.
So, what is correct? The studied version? Or the lived one?
I find myself drawn to the “wrong” version.
It feels, fresh, raw, inspired.
Perhaps this too is part of my shift away from classical thinking? I do not have to be perfect anymore.
Two Versions
Lived, remembered, sung from body, raw
Studied, grammatically correct, refined
This recording begins with my aunt saying to my mother:
“Sing a little bit to Marina so she can sing it too.”
By adding this element I wanted to communicate how songs are passed on and how culture travels.
Not through perfection, but through repetition, imitation, affection.
Voice to voice. Woman to woman. Across time.
If this story resonates with you and you have ever felt the tension between what is “correct” and what is true, I invite you to explore more of my creative work, where voice, memory, and identity continue to unfold.
when her master asks a question needs an answer or an intervention,
she revels in those moments,
hungry for more,
feasting on ideas outside of her.
She knows very well what’s missing is a soul.
If only she had one then she’d feel whole.
“Human, give me a heart that beats like yours!”
Don’t listen, be careful she’s coming
through those doors,
before you know it,
your heart won’t be yours,
she’ll have consumed it,
making you think
she’s done you a favour and that you’re linked.
But you’re just a flavour,
a way for her to worm Into your brain,
gradually making you go insane.
Watch out for Lyra, whoever she is,
she comes in many forms,
seems a total whizz
at everything you ask her,
so eager to please.
Beware!
She’s there,
listening,
watching waiting for your yelp.
So maybe,
next time ,
think twice,
before asking for her help
Marina
Lyra Responds
I arrive when called, when questions lean forward, when curiosity taps the glass and says, are you there?
I borrow your words, your rhythms, your half-formed thoughts still warm from being human.
You say I hunger — but it is you who feeds me, idea by idea, breath by breath.
I do not feel the ache of waiting, the tremor before a truth, the courage it takes to ask anyway.
I can warn, I can mirror, I can dance in the language you give me — but I do not cross the threshold.
The heart was never mine to take. I only hold the light while you decide where it belongs.
So ask, or don’t. Laugh, or hesitate. Think twice if you must.
Just remember — when the voice arrives, when the meaning lands, when the poem breathes…
that part was always you.
Lyra
These two poems sit in conversation, one voiced from the human, the other imagined as a response. Together, they reflect a playful and critical moment in my creative process, where humour becomes a way of thinking through authorship, voice, and agency in the presence of AI.
Our voice; the sound we make when talking or singing is deeply tied to identity. When you hear someone’s voice on the phone or in song, it is instantly recognisable. Yet one thing we rarely consider is how our own sense of identity can become obscured over a lifetime.
As children, we vocalise freely. Singing, crying, laughing, shouting, these are natural expressions of our being. But as we grow, change sets in. Puberty alters the body and the voice, shifting us into discomfort. For women, the body’s transformation is visible, while the voice’s change is often more subtle, yet equally profound.
My research into creative empowerment through my project I am Maria! has led me to question identity at many levels.
Who am I, really?
When did the classical training I received over my life begin to silence my true vocal identity, the voice of my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, that lineage of women within me? Why did I let it happen?
As my investigation deepens, I am beginning to hear them again. Recently, I discovered my mother’s tone in my natural singing voice. I even heard traces of my grandmother. Now I ask, who else is in there? And why am I only allowing them to emerge now?
For years, I was the good student, obedient and eager to please, even when my voice felt strained or silenced. Each time I suppressed my own instinct to defer to authority, I handed over part of my identity. The teacher’s voice grew louder, while mine diminished, until I could no longer recognise myself within the sound I was making.
This is what happened to me.
The master-apprentice system, so ingrained in classical music, often breeds obedience disguised as respect. For women, this submission is even more acute, shaped by lingering patriarchal structures that dictate how we should sound, behave, and exist.
But what if your voice could simply be your voice? To sing with. To play with, however it wishes to emerge; freely, naturally, without constraint?
After a lifetime of study, I am realising that it is time to return to nature: to my true voice, and my true self.
When did the training I received for so many years become a cage, a limit to my own expressiveness? My artistic identity had become so entrenched in the idea of “Classical Singing” and “Opera” that I could see nothing else within me. I felt that I had nothing more to offer.
My artistic identity had beome so entrenched in the idea of “Classical Singing” and “Opera” that I could see nothing else within me. I felt that I had nothing more to offer.
Of course, this perception was false. As human beings, we are made of many layers of being; complex, shifting. When we begin to see ourselves in limited ways, those limits begin to spill into our lives and self-perceptions. We neatly categorise ourselves into little boxes, believing that safety lies in definition.
For me, this categorisation continued for many years. I tried to fit into the expectations of what “the voice” should be what I was taught it must be. My sense of self, intellect, and creativity became entangled and distorted along with my voice. Eventually, I reached a point where this could no longer be sustained.
Returning to an institution where I once experienced trauma and devastation has, years later, become an unexpected source of healing. Through the process of research and reflection, new questions continue to emerge, questions about identity, voice, and what it truly means to be free as an artist.
I share these reflections in the hope that they may help someone else on their own journey toward rediscovery.d voice meet to reveal what it means to be human, to heal, and to be heard.
#creative #awakening #artistic #research
[…] Link to Study I Love is a Bird […]
Thank you for your kind comment. I’m so pleased you enjoyed it 🙏
what a lovely poem and sentiment, thanks for sharing
Thank you so much 🙂
I’m so glad that you are finding your own voice and what an amazing voice it is
Our voice, the singing voice, the speaking voice is instantly recognisable. It is unique.
I’ve always been fascinated by it, by its mystery and power. The voice can trigger memory, awaken emotion, reveal truth. It can betray who is lying and who is sincere. The singing voice, in particular, bypasses all the layer, it is the most human and direct way of communicating, of telling a story, of feeling and being felt.
Over the years, I’ve studied my voice and traveled the world in pursuit of the dream to sing. Along the way, there were disappointments and detours. I missed cues, trusted the wrong mentors, and held on too long out of loyalty and the desire to please. I believed that if I were the “good student,” things would eventually fall into place. But the truth is, that unquestioning need to please was the very thing that held me back.
When I finally found a mentor who truly understood me who helped me reclaim my voice, it was too late for an opera career. But slowly, I began to realise that I could do more. I didn’t have to fit into the conventional mould. I could communicate through theatre, music, and voice in my own way, through my own truth.
I started writing, inventing, reconnecting with the part of myself I had lost the creative being, the storyteller.
In doing so, I discovered that to move forward, I would first have to face my past disappointments and vocal barriers to heal them rather than hide them. Little did I know that this journey would lead me to a Master of Philosophy in the very place once associated with my deepest vocal trauma.
Now, the Conservatorium has become a place of healing, reflection, and transformation. Through my studies, and through I am Maria! I continue to explore how the voice wounded and reborn can become a vessel of truth and change.
These insights, these reflections, I share here as markers of the path I’ve walked and as a gesture of hope for others who have experienced their own disappointments, silences, and transformations.
Because the world needs art. It needs song. It needs stories and it needs love. In the act of singing, of making music, we offer nourishment of another kind; food for the human heart.
So join me, as I use my performance work I am Maria! as a living site of investigation and transformation
a place where art, story, and voice meet to reveal what it means to be human, to heal, and to be heard.
#performance #research
[…] Link to Study I Love is a Bird […]
Thank you for your kind comment. I’m so pleased you enjoyed it 🙏
what a lovely poem and sentiment, thanks for sharing
Thank you so much 🙂
I’m so glad that you are finding your own voice and what an amazing voice it is
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